sculpture known. Found within the Inanna temple complex, it de-
picts a religious festival in honor of the goddess.
The sculptor divided the vase’s reliefs into several bands (also
called registers or friezes), and the figures stand on a ground line(the
horizontal base of the composition). This new kind of composition
marks a significant break with the haphazard figure placement
found in earlier art. The register format for telling a story was to
have a very long future. In fact, artists still employ registers today in
modified form in comic books.
The lowest band on the Warka Vase shows crops above a wavy
line representing water. Then comes a register with ewes and rams—
in strict profile, consistent with an approach to representing animals
that was then some 20,000 years old. The crops and the alternating
male and female animals were the staple commodities of the Sumer-
ian economy, but they were also associated with fertility. They under-
score that Inanna had blessed Uruk’s inhabitants with good crops and
increased herds.
A procession of naked men fills the band at the center of the
vase. The men carry baskets and jars overflowing with the earth’s
abundance. They will present their bounty to the goddess as a votive
offering (gift of gratitude to a deity usually made in fulfillment of a
vow) and will deposit it in her temple. The spacing of each figure
involves no overlapping. The Uruk men, like the Neolithic deer
hunters at Çatal Höyük (FIG. 1-17), are a composite of frontal and
profile views, with large staring frontal eyes in profile heads. The
artist indicated those human body parts necessary to communicate
the human form and avoided positions, attitudes, or views that
would conceal the characterizing parts. For example, if the figures
were in strict profile, an arm and perhaps a leg would be hidden. The
body would appear to have only half its breadth. And the eye would
not “read” as an eye at all, because it would not have its distinctive
oval shape. Art historians call this characteristic early approach to
representation conceptual (as opposed to optical) because artists
who used it did not record the immediate, fleeting aspect of figures.
Instead, they rendered the human body’s distinguishing and fixed
properties. The fundamental forms of figures, not their accidental
appearance, dictated the artist’s selection of the composite view as
the best way to represent the human body.
In the uppermost (and tallest) band is a female figure with a tall
horned headdress next to two large poles that are the sign of the
goddess Inanna. (Some scholars think the woman is a priestess and
not the goddess herself.) A nude male figure brings a large vessel
brimming with offerings to be deposited in the goddess’s shrine. At
the far right and barely visible in FIG. 2-5is an only partially pre-
served clothed man. Near him is the early pictograph for the Sumer-
ian official that is usually, if ambiguously, called a “priest-king,” that
is, both a religious and secular leader. The greater height of the
priest-king and Inanna compared to the offering bearers indicates
their greater importance, a convention called hierarchy of scale.Some
scholars interpret the scene as a symbolic marriage between the
priest-king and the goddess, ensuring her continued goodwill—and
reaffirming the leader’s exalted position in society.
ESHNUNNA STATUETTESFurther insight into Sumerian
religious beliefs and rituals comes from a cache of sculptures rever-
ently buried beneath the floor of a temple at Eshnunna (modern Tell
Asmar) when the structure was remodeled. Carved of soft gypsum
and inlaid with shell and black limestone, the statuettes range in size
from well under a foot to about 30 inches tall. The two largest figures
are shown in FIG. 2-6. All of the statuettes represent mortals, rather
than deities, with their hands folded in front of their chests in a ges-
ture of prayer, usually holding the small beakers the Sumerians used
in religious rites. Hundreds of similar goblets have been found in the
temple complex at Eshnunna. The men wear belts and fringed skirts.
Most have beards and shoulder-length hair. The women wear long
robes, with the right shoulder bare. Similar figurines from other sites
bear inscriptions giving information such as the name of the donor
and the god or even specific prayers to the deity on the owner’s be-
half. With their heads tilted upward, they wait in the Sumerian
“waiting room” for the divinity to appear.
The sculptors of the Eshnunna statuettes employed simple
forms, primarily cones and cylinders, for the figures. The statuettes
are not portraits in the strict sense of the word, but the sculptors did
distinguish physical types. At least one child was portrayed—next to
the woman in FIG. 2-6are the remains of two small legs. Most strik-
ing is the disproportionate relationship between the inlaid oversized
eyes and the tiny hands. Scholars have explained the exaggeration of
the eye size in various ways. But because the purpose of these votive
figures was to offer constant prayers to the gods on their donors’ be-
half, the open-eyed stares most likely symbolize the eternal wakeful-
ness necessary to fulfill their duty.Sumer 352-6Statuettes of two worshipers, from the Square Temple at Eshnunna
(modern Tell Asmar), Iraq, ca. 2700 bce.Gypsum inlaid with shell and
black limestone, male figure 2 6 high. Iraq Museum, Baghdad.
The oversized eyes probably symbolized the perpetual wakefulness of
these substitute worshipers offering prayers to the deity. The beakers
the figures hold were used to pour libations in honor of the gods.1 ft.2-6AUrnanshe,
from Mari, ca.
2600–2500 BCE.